


Exhale Vapor

by obsolete



Category: Far Cry 5
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Drug Use, F/F, Hallucinations, Unhealthy Relationships, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-29
Updated: 2018-06-29
Packaged: 2019-05-30 08:21:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,426
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15092870
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/obsolete/pseuds/obsolete
Summary: Rook falls hard and pulls Faith down to her level.





	Exhale Vapor

**Author's Note:**

> Special thanks to my friend, R!

Rook sees Faith in the forest, who is easily spotted through pine branches by the reflective white light in the shade.

Rook has to step over a few Angel corpses to go over there. She had just made short work of them with her trusty submachine gun.

"This is so fucked, you know that?" Rook has no idea if Faith is real. Sure looks real. It is, of course, highly unlikely Faith Seed is traipsing through the woods so close to a liberated outpost. These little visions may each be an idea implanted in her head. At what point does expecting to hear Faith talk to you will it to happen? But hey, it's an opportunity to tell someone how she really feels. "They are monstrous."

"They are beautiful," Faith corrects. "Pure and without doubts."

"You're a monster for making them."

Faith smiles at her with warm regard, like this is some shared humor. "I do the good that I am capable of doing. It's all we can ask of each other."

"Right." Rook reaches out as if to grab Fake-Faith. It is to no clear goal except maybe grab her by the scruff and shake her until she sees sense, or to see if maybe, but no—she disappears into a puff of white-green smoke. Rook wants to get closer, see if there is anything there. Vile stuff, bliss. It's not a pleasant smelling thing and still one can't help but like it. Sweet and sour, sugary and sharp under your tongue at the same time.

"Popo," Sharky says. "You're talking to a stump."

And so she was. Wow. Not even the tree was real. Rook crosses her arms. Nobody can judge anyone out here for talking to inanimate objects every so often. "It was a private conversation," Rook says.

"Uh, sorry."

 

+

 

Back at the prison, Rook is collecting jobs like baseball cards. She had, of course, gone on an actual baseball card spree in the Whitetails, but here across the Henbane she is trying to triage better. She has resolved to focus on the important things like protecting the water supply, stopping Bliss production, and committing vandalism.

Tracey Lader is here to help with that last part. They are both atop the outer prison wall, and Tracey is reinforcing the fact that at some point, that big statue of Joseph Seed has to go. She leans back against the railing and glances down at the SMG and pistol in Rook's respective hip holsters. Not unkindly, she says, "You're going to need some heavy weapons to take that eyesore out."

Nick Rye and Carmina might be able to do the job. And they—he… Nick is one person… the plane is not a person… when did she start thinking of the plane as one of her specialists? Adelaide's Tulip doesn't have the same distinction. Weird. Nick would be happy to do it, Rook is sure, but that statue is doubtlessly a prime Peggie tourist destination. She has to be sure that he will be adequately covered. That area is too entrenched for her to head straight there.

There is also Hurk and his rocket launcher. Maybe she will bring them all. Bring them both.

Rook rubs at her eyes. It has been a long day.

"Get some sleep, Rook," Tracey suggests. "You look like shit."

"Yeah." Rook isn't about to argue. "I'll just—yeah."

 

+

 

Rook finds herself in a waking Bliss dream again. It has been happening a lot, lately. She doesn't like to tell people.

She is not alone. Besides Faith Seed, there are specters in the light. Faith is acting like she wasn't expecting them. Party crashers in the Bliss may very well be Rook's kind of people.

They all have the same dress. White lace numbers each with flower details. All bare-footed and wearing Faith's dress. The hair is wrong, though, in different ways. Sometimes because it is an odd color such as hot pink, or hacked off in an Angel's buzz cut, and in some instances the hair is so bright Rook can't actually identify the color or shape precisely.

Additionally, none of them have faces. That is a pretty key distinction.

Faith is simply beside herself. There is something almost ugly about her expression as she overlooks the scene before them, such frank displeasure. She waves a hand imperiously, and they disappear. She says to Rook, "They're not real."

Rook would hope not. She doesn't want to have people with Skittles colored hair atop blank, depth-less faces running around the county.

"They're not real," Faith says again. She shoves her hands into her own hair, clutching over her scalp. Like she is covering her ears, but higher up. Faith blinks out of sight.

Great. Just what needs to happen. Faith using what she's been selling. The ringleader may very well be the next sideshow act.

Rook takes the opportunity to look for any landmarks. The statue of Joseph, maybe, or some kind of gate. It'd be nice to find, say, a fucking door to waltz through into the real world all symbolic-like. Alas, most of what there is to see is a whole lot of grass bleached white under the harsh light across gentle rolling hills. No structures are visible. Big, heavy clouds roll overhead. Maybe it is raining, and Rook can't even feel it.

A false Faith appears. It—she sprouts up from the ground like a dandelion, complete with incandescently yellow spiked hair, though blurry beyond recognition.

After waiting for something to happen, maybe a cryptic message, or attack, Rook shrugs. "Hey, buddy, I don't suppose you know the way out?"

Instead of giving it a chance to answer somehow, Faith squashes the ghost. She lands right on top of it as though from a great height. Dandelion-hair collapses down into nothing like a demolished building. Scale-wise, physics-wise, it shouldn't be possible, but it's not like it matters here. It is still such a cartoony thing for something that looks so real.

Light wisps around where Faith is now, and Rook wonders if it's like shiny Bliss-ghost guts spraying everywhere. Faith straightens up slowly from where she'd been crouched, having landed hard. She reaches forward, fingers outstretched. Rook steps back.

"That was pretty messed up," Rook says. Yellow is a cheerful color. Rook likes to think of herself as not being a total bleeding heart, but it is hard not to feel bad.

"It won't happen again," Faith says. Rook finds herself rooted to the ground, and Faith closes the space between them. She clamps a hand over Rook's eyes—pitch black.

Rook opens her eyes again to find the Bliss clouds gone. The field she is in is flattened, all the plants scorched into charcoal, and the air around her is strangely cold.

 

+

 

Rook surveys the water treatment plant from afar. She has Boomer and Sharky in tow. Looking at the hazy clouds of Bliss, easily visible even from here, she is beginning to doubt her specialist selection. Setting things on fire seems unwise. The vapors are heaviest low to the ground. This was very, very predictable. She just didn't think.

Her one bit of foresight was bringing a crossbow. "Here," she says, handing her SMG and accompanying ammo cartridges to Sharky. Not his usual weapon, but it doesn't have incendiary capabilities. "No setting things on fire. Stay close to me. I will take point."

"You're the boss." Sharky shoulders his shotgun.

"And you," Rook says to Boomer. She kneels down to rough up the fur around his face affectionately. "Stay."

Boomer makes an agreeable _whuff_.

She sets off down the hillside, hustling to the cover of cargo containers. Whether these are filled with sanitation equipment or bliss tanks, hard to say. She hopes she can get a hold of some relevant-knowledge folks in the resistance to oversee this place once they have secured it. Problem for later.

This place has quite a few Peggies patrolling. Though most of the guards are very relaxed, a little Bliss-touched. Do they have so many people they can rotate people out of joints like this as needed? At what point does Bliss exposure tip past making a man compliant and useless? So, if she kills all these men, will they be easy to replace?

Rook takes a steadying breath. Questions like these are distractions in moments like this. She waits for one of the Peggies to amble away from his buddies' sight lines, then lets loose an arrow into his throat. The man hits the ground with a meaty thunk.

She manages to coast on stealth longer than she usually does. The people here really are a little softer than the ones in more… ventilated… outposts. Eventually, inevitably, the alarm is raised, and things get a lot more interesting. At this point, Sharky runs out of ammo. He sure burned through it fast. He is back to his original loadout. She switches to her sidearm, which is a little quicker than loading arrows. See, she never really was into crossbows before the uprising started.

They split off to finish up the last of them. At least… until backup arrives in the form of multiple Peggie trucks with mounted guns in the beds. How long did it take the Peggies to put together this kind of arsenal? That is a lot of work that could very well dip into the realm of mass production. And how much time was spent on training them to handle weapons like this?

One Peggie comes around the corner of an outbuilding at the same time Rook is diving there for cover. Given that she was ducking down for the chance to reload her pistol, this is problematic.

Boomer is like a speckled TOW missile, bursting out of the bushes and leveling the Peggie to the pavement. Even the most adorable resistance member is a killing machine. But then Rook remembers that these people are drugging the local water supply, and her almost-foray into sympathy wilts into nothing.

"Good boy," she tells Boomer, clicking the magazine into place. She isn't trying to undo his training by being happy at him disobeying the earlier stay order, but damn, the pup has good timing.

Sharky and Boomer keep watch for any additional reinforcements. Rook sets about getting in to the main treatment facility. It takes some finaggling with release valves, and some tromping through pipes she probably shouldn't be walking in, but she makes it up into the main processor.

Fact is: she doesn't know how this shit works. She just knows she has to stop it. Faith evangelizes like a late-night religious program hologram, but Rook mostly ignores her as she sets up some demolition charges.

 

+

 

As a direct result of those explosions, Rook finds herself treading Bliss water again. Green is such a soothing color, she can't find it in herself to be annoyed about it. Even spying a pair of no-faces isn't the least bit alarming. Rook approaches them. The first clocks her in the jaw—total sucker punch—and disappears before Rook can rev up a retaliatory swing. There is no pain in the Bliss, but that doesn't mean Rook enjoys being punched. Rook dodges the second's attempt, and would upend her in a pretty nifty ninja move if the girl didn't also wimp out. Poof.

A row of no-faces are up ahead. At least a dozen. Rook takes one out preemptively by snapping her neck like it's nothing—and it is, the body evaporates between her fingers. No follow-up attacks come. The others are still standing in place. Rook walks by them, cautiously out of arm's reach. There is something child-like about this, and yet also unsettlingly formal. It makes her think of school kids. Or a police lineup.

And there is Faith, down at the end. Rook hurries along. "Duck, duck, duck," she says, "goose." She taps Faith right on the nose. It is a relief that Faith doesn't disappear in smoke like the others. But the presence of a face and natural hair color had Rook pretty confident.

Faith asks, "Do you know who they are?"

"Can't say I do."

"I didn't know them. It's why they look like this."

"'Cause they aren't real." Faith had said so herself. "Also, I think it's your fault they're mad. You pancaked Dandelion that one time." Just so they are clear, "I didn't start that fight."

Something smooths out in Faith's expression just to break.

"Whoa, hey," Rook stammers. "I mean, they're probably fine. Nothing here is real, right?"

Wrong thing to say, apparently. Faith disappears.

All in all, it is a tough crowd. Faceless faux Faiths start closing in, and their body language is aggressive, with low centers of gravity and clenched fists. They move like Angels. Hyper-aware of how she is unarmed, Rook backs up, and tries to maintain some distance. It is a good thing they aren't running at her. They are mostly looming closer. She hopes this won't be some low-speed chase for the ages.

This would be so much easier if Rook could have a gun.

The new weight of an AR-C in hand is unexpected, but more than welcome.

"Huh," Rook says. That is pretty cool. This would be so much nicer if Rook could be on an uninhabited tropical island.

Nope. Nothing changes.

"Damn." That would be even cooler.

Blue Raspberry kicks things off in earnest by coming at her with a freshly-minted chainsaw. The air warps around the deafening decibels. So, two can play that game. Unfortunate.

Rook fills that empty face with lead before she can get close. Lime Green goes next, followed by Indigo and Hot Pink. Roy G. Biv can't be trusted. Rook preferred them when they were benign and vaguely cheerful looking. If it's going to be like this, she has no qualms about putting them all down.

 

+

 

Some indeterminate time later, an exhausted Rook eases down to lie on the grass. She doesn't feel any injuries, but her head is spinning. It's the panicky vertigo of pain, if not pain itself. That internal sense of not wanting to aggravate anything. There is no blood, but maybe she just can't see it. She has a vague worry of having inflicted blows on herself.

"You didn't hesitate. You turned straight to violence." Faith is frowning over her. "It's a recurring theme with you, is it not?" She kneels beside her, taking her forearm in hand. For what purpose, it's hard to say. Rook looks down to see nothing of interest about her own arm. Then again, Faith does seem to have a thing for handholding and casual touches. Rook might have a thing for handholding and casual touches. Rook's free hand goes to Faith's to hold it in place.

"Your dearly departed brother didn't brand me with 'wrath' for nothing, no." It is a sore subject, though. Literally sore. Tattoos are something to care for, well, carefully, and Rook had never gotten ink before. No one really explained things. Shooting down his plane had been very satisfying when the time came.

Faith expression freezes in place unpleasantly. "The Father predicted these sacrifices." Her grip tightens, almost painful now, though the floaty Bliss nonsense just isn't having it. "He predicted you."

Rook has a good feeling about this, now, with only one herald standing. Kneeling. "And he still likes his odds?"

"He isn't gambling." Faith sighs. "This isn't a game."

"Do you like his odds?" When Faith opens her mouth to speak, Rook says, "And don't say the word 'faith.'"

"It is my name."

Is it? Rook is a champion at snooping. So many places were left with all sorts of interesting notes strewn about. It's quaint, in a way, that not everyone's secrets are locked online in private message logs. To say nothing of Jessop Conservatory, and the destruction Rook had wrought there. "Try not to lose your mind," Rook says. It is getting to be a struggle to keep Faith in focus. "I don't care what anybody else says. I don't think that ship's sailed."

"Thank you. I think."

"And you're welcome for killing your evil twins."

Faith looks up, face out of view. "I won't thank you for that."

"I meant the Fake Faiths."

"I know you want to help. But you're helping in the wrong ways. In the wrong name." She clamps down on Rook's arm, almost reflexively, compulsively. Then she bows her head down, leans in closer than Rook would expect. Way closer than Rook is comfortable with. Faith kisses Rook's forehead. Feather-light and brief.

"Um," Rook says, heart rate spiking.

"You're fighting all the wrong things."

"Um," Rook says again.

"I know you will make the right choice."

 

+

 

Rook wanders back to the jail. She feels a bit like a barn-sweet horse, ambling on home after hopping the fence earlier.

The vendor by the entrance shouts for help. Is she asking Rook? No. The vendor takes off down the hall. She doesn't quite make it out of sight before someone else pops out of a doorway. Tracey.

"Shit! Rook!"

Oh, so now they want Rook's help. Rook leans back against the door. It would be a long distance to cover, and Tracey is rushing towards her anyway. Tracey would be great for handling drunks, Rook thinks, with the way Tracey grabs her so easily. Restricts movement, supports weight, and in one smooth motion. Or maybe Rook isn't noticing any jostling. Some blinks are longer than others.

Rook clutches Tracey's sleeves. "I think I love her," she says, dazed.

"That's the Bliss talking." Tracey pulls Rook's arm more solidly over her shoulders. "You can't believe anything she says."

Rook mumbles, "It's just a feeling."

Tracey shakes her by the shoulders. "Stay awake!" Then, she calls over her shoulder, "Sheriff!!"

 

+

 

Rook envies Nick. The intermittent BRRRR of Carmina's guns on the statue sounds glorious. Rook would love to stand back and watch, but—like she'd expected—the place is swarming with Peggies. Snipers, Chosen, Angels, and others make for a veritable variety pack of cultists that had been waiting here. Well, not so much waiting as they were just here. Minding their cult business.

When it comes to Peggies, though, it's not like there is such a thing as "wrong place, wrong time." All these problems they face are self-made.

Rook fucking hates them all.

Instead of bringing someone else with her directly, she has Adelaide inbound with Tulip. It's out of a macabre sort of laziness. Knowing she doesn't have anyone else on foot with her means it is safer to assume these are all enemies around her. And they are.

She levels a trench coat with a rifle-bash to the nose. She had upgraded to an AK-MS for this operation especially. The satisfying thud of him dropping is drowned out by the rumble-crack of concrete crashing to the ground outside.

The statue is like a stuffed piñata for Rook. She is more than ready to get the candy inside. Some of the cultists even have baseball bats, but this is Rook's party. They aren't invited.

Adelaide and Nick maintain constant radio chatter. Rook tunes it out for the most part, struggling to hear past the roar in the ears. She does startle back to active listening every so often by key words that, out of context, are worrisome.

"Big piece going down!" Nick is warning about falling rubble. He is not indicating damage to either him or Addy. They aren't going down. But it makes Rook have to back track over what she heard all the same.

Kid's activity or video game dungeon crawl, she can't decide. She climbs ladders with a distinct sense of leveling up each time.

 

+

 

Faith appears at the top. She is hazy at the edges but recognizably upset.

Given that more than a few Bliss barrels were blown up in the name of the greater good on the way up here, Rook isn't surprised to see her. She was ready, though. Her readiness is in the form of having a parachute equipped. She leaps off the far edge of the scaffolding.

Faith had asked her to show her faith by jumping off the statue in a hallucination. It was a false confession. This is more honest.

The air screams in her ears, but it is mostly cut short when she snaps the chute out into place. Adrift like this, the county seems smaller and larger at the same time. It is a brief taste of Alice in Wonderland syndrome. The land is stretched out before her further and further but in tiny shapes.

Before she can have any properly cathartic feelings about it all, Rook lands cleanly by a riverbank. The time-smoothed gravel is softened by sand-silt dirt underneath. In an area like this, she is fortunate to have not ended up tangled in trees.

Faith is, naturally, waiting by the water's edge. Green-lit and spectral, not really there, except for how Rook likes to think she is there. All this could be from how Rook wants to think Faith has nothing better to do than follow her around and lecture her. It is hard to blame so many Henbane woes on some sort of contagious suggestion, though.

"I know, I know," Rook says, viciously undoing straps. She shrugs off her parachute pack to hold her hands up in mock surrender. "I don't call, I don't write."

Faith says that she thought they were building trust.

"Trust?" Rook laughs outright. "In what?"

"I can't even think as to what you hoped to accomplish." Faith draws a ragged breath, so close to vocalizing. "It does nothing. It is purely destructive. There is no message to be read. You aren't dialogging with us."

Rook thinks it should be rather obvious. "It looks bad for you, doesn't it? Happened on your watch, and on your parcel of land. You've been sitting pretty this whole time and you can't even hold onto a decorative rock."

Faith is alight, electric, sparking white and nearly indistinct. The brighter she gets, the more she dims between bursts. Limited bandwidth transmission, or Rook is lazy holding up an illusion, it's hard to say. Faith says, "You don't know what he'll do to me!"

Her? "Really? Because I knocked over his statue and burned his book?"

"You burned the Book?!"

No. She hasn't. It was described as Faith's personal copy, after all. Rook is planning on burning it when she has Faith in front of her in the real world. Rook asks, "Which was more important?"

"What's important is being saved, Deputy."

Saved, like Faith had to be? That was what happened, right? Been there, done that. "Such melodrama." Rook isn't so naive as to think it's a case of faking it until you make it. "You're overcompensating. If you want the book, you'll have to come and get it." It is far from her smoothest line, but it's what she's got.

Faith's voice has gone brittle, anger spent. "Is this a game to you?"

"Not at all." Rook has to believe that questioning your sanity means you've still got it. And this is the perfect test. Are you listening, Faith? Are these messages resolving anywhere? She bends down to pick up a sizable river rock, and chucks it at Faith. Strange, how dispelling the physical aspect of the illusion is so easy.

She retrieves her parachute gear, stuffing everything haphazardly back in her pack. She will sort it back out later. Famous last words, sure, but she is eager to find friendly faces again.

Hacking rotors sound overhead. Adelaide has tracked her down with perfect timing. Rook readies her grappling hook. One good thing about this uprising is that she has started traveling in style.

 

+

 

Faith actually shows up in person. There's no red-tinge distortion at the edges, no sparkles in her footprints, and her walking looks shockingly normal. It is weird to look at her and realize gravity is a thing she obeys.

Rook is a little perturbed that she had no warning. This was hardly a scheduled visit. She has been looting an abandoned marina—civil forfeiture, something or other, and hey, everyone is doing it. Remote explosives don't grow on trees, but she finds so many useful components in random sheds.

Someone had known she was here, then conveyed it to Faith, and she had arrived. Rook has been here maybe an hour. That is not a big window of time.

"You wanted to talk," Faith says.

It is a disproportionate amount of risk if you ask Rook. To think it was this easy: capture the flag and score a point. The book of Joseph tucked in the inside of her jacket seems a noticeable weight now. Though, it is not exactly a thin thing to have attached under her holster straps.

The Angels are pure and without doubts, or so Faith had said. Rook eyes her. "If you weren't doing this, you wouldn't have to doubt yourself."

There is a loftiness to Faith now, ruffled feathers taking precedence over caution. "I have no doubts. Who are you talking to? Me? Or to yourself?"

Rubber and glue. Childish.

Really, though, Rook cannot believe Faith is really here. In person. Flesh and blood and dewy with the humid afternoon heat. She probably has a whole host of Peggies outside. Rook didn't hear anyone roll up. They must have traveled on foot down the road.

Rook is no stranger to being abducted at random. Faith's brothers were quite fond of the process. Familiar with these tactics as Rook is, she almost… she can almost say with some confidence that this is not that. That is not what is happening here. Faith wants to talk.

"No doubts? Whatsoever? Big talk with how I lured you here with all of one hardcover book?" Rook advances closer. "I could kill you, easy." Rook killed her brothers.

"You would be sealing your fate. I don't think it's in your best interests. Do you?" Faith grabs her wrists. Rook goes rigid with want to create space, so used to fighting attackers off her. Faith's hands are fever-warm, maybe even a little clammy. "Did you burn the Book?"

"No." Rook has it right here with her. It must be that important. "I think I should have. You should have demanded proof of life before showing up here like this."

Faith lets go, almost regretfully slowly. "And I think it means something that you didn't. After everything else."

Rook takes a step forward, despite the fact she doesn't have the space to, not really. Rook has a Kevlar vest under her milsurp coat, and Faith is wearing a thin, lacy dress. Rook feels a bit like a tank parked next to a sports car. "What do you think it means?"

Faith stops her with a palm pressed over her collarbone. Fingers edge into her throat. "There is more we have to offer you you than this," Faith pushes more firmly into the tattoo, "Wrath," she says, eyes ablaze with it herself. "Lust."

Rook grins, unabashed. "That's your takeaway?" Her way or the highway. Joseph over all. Right vs wrong. Rook, the sinner. Faith, the… angel.

"It's all you know." Faith sighs. "These things take time. Don't worry. I can show you the way."

"Yeah? So, what have you been showing me this whole time? This all one big appetizer in your grand eleventh hour 'recruiting' scheme?" Could have been budgeted better, seeing as the Henbane is in two pieces now. Faith's control over it is almost decisively challenged.

"The Father will see you saved. I will see you saved."

Rook hands her the book. "Here," she says. "See if this makes the difference you think it does."

 

+

 

The prison could very well be lost. The sheriff is gone. Rook has to find Tracey and whoever else is left. The sight of the prison overrun is not new—when she'd first regrouped with Sheriff Whitehorse, it'd been in similarly dire straits. The rest of the county was Faith's, back then. Now, it is Rook's. Due to some twisted cosmic balance, Rook knows in her gut that this won't be as easy a clusterfuck to fix.

On the roof, Faith is there. In a way. Also, in the way.

"You should have considered more before," Faith says, "you took something of mine."

Rook is not going to have Faith pin this on that. "I gave it back!"

"The Book was one thing. What of the marshal—"

"He was—" Rook is about to say 'mine,' but it feels wrong. "Not yours."

Faith twirls a lock of her hair with one finger. She is all girlish confidence, delicate and untouchable like priceless artwork. "The statue?"

Are they going to list outposts and shrines and the names of freed hostages? And Faith never seems properly upset about Jacob and John. Rook checks her rifle ammo then says, "If we're tallying things up, we're going to be here a while." That might be the point. Chit chat while the Sheriff drowns in the Bliss. While Angels smash resistance members' faces in. While more Peggie trucks may very well be on the way. But if Rook wants to, she can just walk through Faith.

"Fine. I won't tell you. All is fair in love and war, but it never feels that way, does it?" Faith's smile is all teeth. "I'll see you soon."

 

+

 

Faith sucks her in to the Bliss somehow. Peggies most likely brought in barrels of the stuff.

Is there a way to burn it out somehow, like expending energy? Meditate back to awareness? Rook never tried anything of the sort. No way is she going to figure it out now. Futile rage wracks her as she goes hunting for Faith.

She finds her, and she finds the Sheriff. Or some hokey echo of him, one who likes to sing.

Faith's triumphant demeanor has a manic edge to it. She dares Rook to try and stop him from joining their family.

Naturally, Rook pursues her, only to find a whole group of people. It is like before: too many Faiths for this one town. All these girls in dresses, who don't need shoes like mere mortals. But these are Faith-Faiths, fully rendered with the same face. The same eyes. The same voice, throwing taunts. Unified, perfect copies.

Rook can't kill her. Them. Her stomach twists with the realization. She was the sucker all along.

One Faith volleys a series of strange light-bursts at her, and not knowing what analogous damage would happen in reality, Rook is careful to dodge. But she doesn't draw up the idea of guns, or imagine metal in her hand. She keeps her hands empty and loose at her sides.

Rolling out of the way sends her into one of the Faiths, who goes up into light like a popped bubble. She might not have to hurt them.

This improvised game of duck, duck, goose 2.0 only lasts for so long, before a Faith does not dispel. An inappropriate surge of hope rises in Rook, at least until she backs up into another Faith that also does not dematerialize. No more relying on taps and shoulder-bumps.

Struck with a bizarre idea, Rook grabs the nearest Faith and leans in to plant a kiss on her. Poof! Gone. Frog, not princess. "Geez," Rook can't help but say. She spins around to check where the next attack will come from to find the place is empty. Empty save for one.

Faith is frozen in place it seems, surprised past the point of outwardly reacting.

"Can we talk now?" Rook asks. She approaches cautiously, hands up the way she'd usually be requesting of the other party. Rook takes Faith's hand in hers. "You can't keep me here." She has the ability to keep everyone else. But not Rook. "If you could, you would have."

"The Father would have you here willingly."

"Yeah, right." Rook has dodged a thousand deaths through this all, and not out of Joseph's idea of mercy. "He wanted you to prove yourself. And you haven't, have you?"

"I proved myself a long time ago. You weren't even in the picture."

Rook is the same as Joseph. Breaking her down to build her back up. Reshaping in her image. Rook never knew Rachel Jessop. Never will. "You're another sacrifice. Another seal. You're just here to die."

"I would. I will. I will die gladly." Faith has the same conviction as her not-brothers. "You could have made a different choice."

"Aren't I?"

Rook pulls Faith's hand up, towards her own face. Tries to force it into covering her eyes, the way Faith had done, once. Faith had covered her eyes and sent her straight out of the Bliss and into reality. The hope is that touching her palm to her eyelids will do the same right quick. It doesn't do the trick.

"You can't keep me here," Rook says again. Faith's free hand comes up to Rook's cheek, grasping almost roughly. Then the hand over Rook's eyes tightens, and it is truly dark.

Rook comes to in a bunker. Either she isn't clear of the Bliss, or the place is covered in dense foliage and equipped with green-tinted lighting. But she knows she can fix a lot of problems here with explosives, and she will.

 

+

 

A few days after blowing the bunker to nothing, Rook goes to an abandoned marina on a lark. Who else does she find in there but Faith Seed?

"I burned it," Faith says, not the least bit surprised by her sudden appearance. Her mouth twists, going white at the corners. "You said you were going to burn it. Once I had that idea in my head, I couldn't get it out."

Rook is scared to move. Can't risk pushing her into doing anything. Rook thinks of the Bliss butterflies, little wing beats sending far-off ripples. The muscle tension makes it hard to stand still, like she is balancing on each foot separately. "Did you want to burn it?"

"Yes." Faith turns away. "No." She whips around, lunging. Rook stays where she is with her arms pacifist-loose at her sides. But Faith just grabs her wrists. "Stop it."

There is a neat row of little pink crescents across Rook's palm. She wouldn't dig nails in to draw blood; she'd have noticed before it got that far. She doesn't have a whole lot of fingernail besides, since long nails are a tremendous liability in the field. Rook offers up, "It doesn't hurt."

"A lot of things don't hurt you, when they should." Though not true relations, there are shades of Joseph in Faith's stare. They both have a piercing quality that strikes Rook as unseemly. Intensely off-putting to the point of horseshoeing around to more than a little intriguing. Faith says, "If you reacted the way you're supposed to… things would be so different."

 Too much feels inevitable at this point. "Would they really?"

Faith giggles, pitched high and nervous. "Yes. Oh, yes." She sidles close to tuck Rook's hair behind her ears, both hands feather-light on either side of her face. "But it's okay. Maybe it's better this way." She tugs Rook in for a kiss, warm and intrusive and sure at Rook's mouth, but Rook doesn't give. Faith stops, burying her face into Rook's neck for acceptable alternative closeness. "What?" Her voice is sharp, a knife-edge at Rook's throat. "Was it all an act?"

Rook takes a steadying breath. Finds herself dizzier and more air-starved for it. "That's what I want to ask you. What I've got to know."

"Hmm." Faith doesn't sound doubtful, only considering. Her cheek is soft on Rook's skin. Faith settles her arms over Rook's shoulders in a lazy sort of hug. A weighted embrace, letting gravity pitch in on getting them closer. Faith is solid and real and casting a shadow. It is hard for Rook to wrap her head around it. Faith says slowly, "I suppose you'll have to wonder." She makes another attempt at a kiss, and this time Rook is greedy for it.

It is soft and deep both, all to be cut short by Rook's irrepressible handsiness. Her fingers reach under Faith's shirt to skim over her lower back. Faith stiffens up, pulling back just enough to huff a little laugh. The jagged edge of nerves are absent from that small sound. Must have tickled. That's all.

Rook withdraws her hands sheepishly. Too gentle, too pushy. There is no guarantee that the two of them will have the time to figure out the right balance. "Sorry," Rook says, half meaning it. The important half.

"Your hands are so cold." Faith gathers Rook's hands in her own again, and breathes slow-warm air over them.

 

+

 

The next day, the pair is in Rook's Bootlegger, piling on speed down a straight stretch of road.

Rook isn't sure if Faith should be benched or not. If the resistance was a democracy, Faith would be imprisoned. Or, actually, more likely dispatched in the way her brothers have been—so far. It's only that while Rook technically doesn't have the final say in everything, she has had the final say in everything. The generous umbrella of so-called tactical decisions are hers. There is still no denying that her judgment is… far from impartial.

This late in the game, it's all-or-nothing. Joseph is by himself in this—or, at least, lonely at the top—and the next step in all this has to be the last.

Where everyone else is rightly questioning Faith's commitment, or rather, her breaking commitment… Rook is more concerned about what will come after. Where it will leave Faith. If it will help her case in any meaningful way. If it will cost more than it is worth. She has to wonder if it's the problem to worry about.

"If this didn't change enough," Faith says, "don't worry. He'll save you."

"God?" Rook still isn't much for religion and can't keep the skepticism out of her voice.

Faith says nothing.

Rook shrugs. "Okay," she says, dragging it out. She doesn't mean to be rude on this.

Faith leans across the center console to plant a chaste peck on her cheek. "No matter what," she says, "I'm glad things turned out this way."

That doesn't sound ominous as fuck or anything. Rook turns the radio on. She'll take Wheaty's static-artefacted selection of tunes over a conversational misstep, especially since she wants to think Faith is just being sweet.


End file.
